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Marx Soul is the final boss of Kirby Super Star Ultra, serving as final impediment of The True Arena. It had previously been assumed that Marx had met his doom by ramming into Nova after his battle with Kirby at the end of Milky Way Wishes, but it was shown in an added cut-scene that Marx's body absorbed Nova's energy and grew stronger, becoming the powerful Marx Soul. He resembles the original Marx in both strategy and design, but with a few aggressive additions throughout. After Kirby lands the finishing blow on him, Marx Soul releases a blood-curdling scream as he slowly splits down the middle and turns purple; both halves then explode as the dimension grows unstable.

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Physical Appearance

Marx Soul greatly resembles regular Marx in terms of his design and his battle tactics. Marx Soul's wings are now dark red, have three claws on each wing, the hearts on them are bright blue, and the tips of the wings are larger as well. His eyes are now much more menacing, where he has a tiny pupil surrounded by a single thin lavender-colored iris. The pompoms on his hat are large and have spikes on the top, whereas in his original form they were small and round. The ends of his shoes are pointy, his mouth is wider with an elongated tongue that hangs out of it like a dog, and larger fangs. Marx Soul wears a tarnished gold necklace (seemingly made from pieces of Nova) around his neck. When his full mouth and all of his teeth are shown, they are revealed to be jagged and unevenly spaced apart. Strangely, the colors on Marx Soul's hat have been switched, having dark magenta on the left side and sky blue on the right side. Marx Soul also has a laugh that sounds like a cackle that has been electronically distorted.

Attacks

Kirby fighting Marx Soul

Marx Soul shares most of the attacks he uses with his living counterpart, but he has gained two new attacks in the process of absorbing Nova's power which involves him splitting himself in half. One of the two attacks Marx Soul performs involves him raining down pink and blue paint balls from the ceiling (similar to one of Drawcia Soul's attacks from Kirby: Canvas Curse); the paintballs fall slowly at first, but soon start to fall increasingly quickly, making it impossible to dodge them all. The best way to take the least amount of damage is for Kirby to move all the way to the side of the screen and guard himself. These balls will give Kirby the Paintability when inhaled and swallowed, but Paint oddly does very little damage to Marx Soul. The second of the two new attacks Marx Soul performs only happens when his health is about half gone. At this point, he can create two huge energy blasts which move along the screen (the pink blast always goes first, with the blue blast following shortly after it is off-screen): this attack cannot be guarded against and must be avoided.

Of the attacks Marx Soul shares with his living counterpart, all of them are now significantly stronger. For example:

Marx Soul performs the cutter attack twice rather than once.

Marx Soul moves from side to side while charging up the ice bomb in his mouth.

Marx Soul drops six seeds instead of four. The vines that grow from the seeds are twice their original size, and some parts of them bloom into roses, causing more damage to Kirby should he get hit. The vines cause damage regardless of whether Kirby is guarding or not.

Marx Soul is faster and more precise when tracking Kirby from underground and he springs up much faster and much higher than he did before. The attack causes Kirby damage regardless of whether he is guarding or not.

The arrow attack and laser beam take up more space on the screen and deal more damage.

His black hole attack deals more damage, has a wider range, is used more often, and is even Marx Soul's opening attack.

Trivia

Marx Soul's pause screen description has a typo in it, in that it says "a nova's power" as opposed to "Nova's power", since Nova is a proper noun in this case.

Although Marx was split in half and was destroyed, he arrives in his normal form in the "Kirby Master" movie (which is unlocked when the file is 100% complete) and cheers for Kirby despite him being defeated three times. This happens again in Kirby's Return to Dream Land and Kirby: Triple Deluxe.

In the original Kirby Super Star and its Nintendo DS remake, during the cut-scene where Marx makes his wish for control of Planet Popstar, the split-second before he transforms, Marx has a brief appearance somewhat resembling his Soul form (with the long tongue, sharp fangs and manic eyes). This is more noticeable in the remake and is probably what inspired the design for Marx Soul.

In Kirby Super Star, there is a glitch in The Great Cave Offensive that will cause the game to trigger a battle with Marx. During this time Marx looks distorted and his color will change to a purplish color, similar to that of Marx Soul. His laugh is also distorted as well.

While Marx Soul has not made a physical appearance prior or since (in favor of the original Marx), one of the rare keychains in Kirby: Triple Deluxe depicts Marx Soul splitting himself in half.

The colorful hexagon tiles on the ground during the battle resemble Dark Star's ground.